Celebration Brands commissions Logic One warehouse

Operations Director Fenton Wheelock cuts the ribbon to Celebration Brands’ new warehouse facility, Logic One, located at the Pepsi-Cola Jamaica complex in Kingston, on Tuesday, August 20, 2019. The others (from left) are outgoing Managing Director of Red Stripe Ricardo Nuncio; Anthony Hylton, member of parliament for Western St Andrew; and Managing Director of Celebration Brands Edwin Vaquerano.

Celebration Brands Limited, which is jointly operated by Red Stripe Jamaica and partner Pepsi-Cola Jamaica, opened a new warehouse on Spanish Town Road in Kingston on Tuesday that it has branded as Logic One.

The moniker, as described by Celebration, encapsulates the re-engineering of the Kingston distribution centre “to satisfy the necessities of the companies’ future market”.

Edwin Vaquerano, managing director of Celebration Brands, said that around US$4 million was spent on the first phase of the build-out of Logic One and that the other phases await board approval.

Celebration Brands is a 50:50 sales and distribution joint venture company selling and distributing all Red Stripe and Pepsi brands in Jamaica.

The first of Celebration’s depots opened in Mandeville in April 2017, followed by a second in St Ann two months later.

The new warehouse in Kingston, which is 3,200 square metres in size, with a height of 1,600 metres, complies with the requirements of parent companies Heineken and Pepsi-Cola Jamaica, Vaquerano said.

“Here, we can allocate approximately 150,000 cases of product. It’s about efficiency. Not every SKU (stock-keeping unit) has the same turnover, but 150,000 will last approximately 10 days,” he explained.

Logic One was described as the brainchild of operations and services director Fenton Wheelock. The warehouse, which is the size of two professional football fields, was first approved in April 2018.

Celebration also modernised the administration building; made changes to vehicular flow on the compound; and added LED lights, electronic forklifts and rainwater harvesting during the expansion.

The company said that when phase two is completed more than 100 vehicles, including trailers and trucks, will be dispatched from this new distribution centre. The full project is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2020.

“Logistically, we are allocating more space but maximising the movement between warehouses,” the managing director said.

The Kingston operation houses two other warehouses and a production plant. Vaquerano said that the introduction of Logic One would remove three steps previously taken in moving product, reducing movement to two steps from five.

The possibility of introducing racks for storage will also under consideration in later phases.

“The warehouse is very high. Racks can double the capacity of the warehouse,” Vaquerano said.